Will anywhere ever feel like home again?
by virtualfindingsdocumented
Summary: Three orphaned children spend their first night with their new guardian, a man about whom no good words can be said. AU.


Lemony had been very quiet all day. He had been much quieter since that fateful morning when Ghede and Gifford gave the children the news about their parents, but today it was different. It was one thing for him to be quiet in Ghede's and Gifford's bland house, it was another for it to happen when Dr. Feint gave them an absurd list of chores.

So, after a day cleaning a laboratory full of substances that seemed not to be safe to be in the reach of children, feeding honeydew melons to some weird tadpoles, washing Dr. Feint's yellowed lab coats, and a lot more strange and tiring tasks, Jacques and Kit just needed to exchange a look to know they were both thinking the same thing.

Lemony seemed to be in his own world as he sat on the old and hard mattress of the small bed the siblings had to share in the small and dirty room Dr. Feint had _discouraged_ them from leaving at night. He looked at his notebook, one of the few objects he could keep from their old life, but he didn't seem to be interested in writing on it.

"Lem, are you alright?" Kit asked in a soft tone. She wasn't used to comforting her brothers. That was her parents' job. But now they weren't there, and she couldn't leave all the burden on Jacques.

For a moment, it seemed like Lemony hadn't even heard her. Kit was about to ask again when he suddenly spoke:

"Do you think this is what Mother and Father wanted for us?"

Neither of the twins knew how to answer that. It was hard to imagine what their parents had wanted for them. Did they ever think such a tragedy could happen?

Lemony stood up and turned to them.

"This place, this man... Who even is he?"

"He's our guardian now," Jacques said.

"Ghede said he is Father's-" Kit started, but Lemony interrupted her.

"If he is related to Father, why have we never met him before?"

"He is a scientist." Kit said. "He travels often. Maybe there was never a convenient time."

"Never?" Lemony asked. "In fourteen years?"

Kit's shoulders lowered in defeat.

"It doesn't matter. He is our guardian now." Jacques repeated.

"He is not qualified for this position," Lemony said. "And you both know it."

He was right, and his siblings hated it, but at least he was sounding like his normal self again.

"I don't think the laboratory is safe." Kit admitted after a long pause.

Jacques sighed. "The tadpoles bite."

"He can't expect us to share one bed, especially one so small," Lemony said.

"Maybe he didn't have time to prepare anything else." Kit said. "Remember, he never got married or had children."

"He is not trying to cause us trouble on purpose." Jacques agreed.

"He is!" Lemony insisted. "Didn't you see how he looked when he gave us the list? He had a sadistic smile. Sadistic is a word that here means-"

"We know what it means!" Jacques exclaimed. "Suppose you are right. What do you want us to do?"

"I want us to go home. To our real home." Lemony said, his voice taking a sad tone that made his siblings' hearts hurt.

"We don't have a home anymore," Jacques whispered, almost afraid of voicing the truth. "We don't have anywhere else to go."

"Maybe we can make this our home." Kit suggested in a timid voice. She wasn't very convinced of it either, but they had to try. Her eyes already were scanning the room, looking for anything she could do to make it more comfortable for them.

"This place will never be home!" Lemony shouted, voice cracking. He turned around, not wanting his siblings to see he had started crying.

He hated it when they saw him crying.

Jacques had no idea of what to do. Part of him wanted to tell his brother to just get over it, that complaining and crying wouldn't help. Another part wanted to join him and cry too. But he knew neither one was the right thing to do. His father would know what to if he were here. He always did.

It was Kit who took the few steps until she was beside Lemony. She wouldn't make him look at her if he didn't want to. She just wanted to be close to him.

"He will hurt us." He said, between sobs.

"He won't." Kit said, holding his arm in a comforting manner.

"He is wicked."

"He won't hurt us." Kit insisted. "Do you remember that time our parents took us to a picnic?"

Lemony nodded. "That branch almost hit you both."

"But Mother got there just in time and saved us." Kit added.

Lemony sobbed.

"Mother isn't here to save us now."

Kit looked away.

"Do you remember what she said when we were going back home?"

Lemony wasn't sure he remembered, as he was very young back then.

"'_We_ _take_ _care_ _of_ _our_ _own'._" Jacques said.

Kit smiled. She could almost hear her mother's voice. She had sounded so serious, and her eyes were red, probably out of fear of what almost happened.

She had never seen her mother afraid before.

"We take care of our own." She repeated. "No matter what happens, we will stay together and we will take care of each other. We won't let him hurt us, just like mother didn't let that branch hurt us."

Jacques walked to Lemony's side and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"We are just children."

"No. You are the world's smartest 13 years-old boy." Jacques said, repeating something his father said when he wanted to flatter his little brother. "And Kit is a brilliant mechanic."

"And you are a brilliant journalist." Kit added, smiling.

"If he tries hurting us, we will call Ghede and Gifford. They will take us away." Jacques continued.

"Away to where?" Lemony asked.

"Anywhere better than here." Kit said, but that was the wrong answer to the wrong question.

There were many questions the Snicket children should have asked that night, like "why are those tadpoles' bites so sharp?" or "why does Dr. Feint seem to hate us so much?". They should have asked why there was a child's bed in the house of a man who never had children, or who was hiding behind the bushes when they had that picnic all those years ago. But the most important question they should have asked was, why should they wait for Dr. Feint to actually hurt one of them to try and get away from the sinister scientist?

However, as it happens often in life, the right questions only came to the three siblings much later, when there wasn't anything else to do about the terrible events that followed. They didn't ask any more questions, right or wrong, that night. They just played a quick game to figure who would get to try the bed first, and Kit made an improvised mattress with some of the ugly clothes Ghede bought for them. Jacques won and got the bed, which later wouldn't feel like a prize at all, while Lemony and Kit shared the thin clothes' mattress.

They fell asleep quick, as they were very tired from all the chores, and the thought that they would take care of each other was the only comfort in their unfortunate circumstances.


End file.
